• themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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    15 days ago

    Why do people assume that undercover officers need to engage in sex acts or drug use to ingratiate themselves in the criminal underworld? Criminals can be monogamous and sober. It’s not like gangs are like “commit sexual assault or we’re going to shoot you for being a cop.” That’s some twisted incel fantasy shit.

    • tal@lemmy.today
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      15 days ago

      Criminals can be monogamous and sober.

      Sure.

      However, if police policy on undercover officers has some publicly-known constraint that doesn’t apply to the people that they are aiming to impersonate, one has an easy litmus test for whether someone is a police officer or not.

      It’s not like gangs are like “commit sexual assault or we’re going to shoot you for being a cop.”

      Doesn’t mean that the officer is going to be shot, but they might not be trusted by whoever they’re trying to investigate.

      All that being said, this is just in the abstract. I don’t have any idea of whether it’s warranted in this situation. But it’s going to be something to keep in mind when designing policy for undercover officers – one cannot permit for that easy litmus test to exist.